Oak Grove News

Weekly Update ~ December 7, 2015

Oak Grove News

Weekly Update ~ December 7, 2015

Important Pick-up Reminders

Parents and Guardians--We would like to remind you that vehicles are not permitted in the elementary parking lot for after school pickup. This area is reserved for busses. We are seeing an increased number of vehicles entering this area. We ask that all students being picked up after school take place in the upper, Junior High parking lot. We do not want students walking through the busses for safety reasons.

Also, for those picking up students in the upper, Junior High parking lot, we ask that you get in the line for pickup. We are also seeing an increased number of students crossing the parking lot, which increases the chance for an accident.

Our end of the day pickup is very efficient and takes less than 10 minutes on most days. Please be patient and help us make our end of the day dismissal as safe as possible.

Please be reminded that the use of a cell phone on school grounds is illegal in the state of Illinois. We continue to see driver's using cellphones while in the school parking lots.

Thank you.

Lost and Found Items

Parents....we have an extensive collection of clothing, book bags, lunch boxes, drinking containers, etc. Items in the Junior High cafeteria are hung on a rack and items in the Elementary cafeteria have been sorted into bins. Please come in and take a look to see if your child has any missing belongings in the Lost and Found. All items left after Dec.18 will be donated.

Curriculum Corner

Hello Oak Grove Community,

This week, Oak Grove will take part in the Hour of Code activities as part of Computer Science Education Week (Dec. 7-13). The Hour of Code activity is a global attempt started by Hadi Partovi to encourage over 100 million students from over 180 countries to learn the basics of computer programming. Tutorials are available for students of all ages from Kindergarten to adult. Besides that activities covered during school hours, we encourage families to visit www.code.org/learn to explore the wide variety of activities that work on computer browsers, tables, smartphones, or with no computer at all. There are new Star Wars, Minecraft, and Frozen tutorials to try.

PARCC Scores Update

ISBE is releasing the scores from the 2014-2015 PARCC assessment on December 11th. Please look for your child's report in the mail at the end of this week.

Kindergarten Clarification

Recently, there has been community and District conversation regarding full-day Kindergarten options for the 2016-17 school year. Please know that a final decision WILL NOT be made at the December 15th Board of Education meeting, as earlier thought. Discussion will continue, but no formal decision will be made at this point in time.

Any questions can be directed to Dr. Lemon at his e-mail address, which is lemon@ogschool.org. Thank you.

TAG Advisory Council Update

With our updated Talented And Gifted (TAG) program, an advisory council has been created to support students that may not have qualified for TAG services during the initial placement due to moving into the district or exponential growth after the placement decision for current students, but continue to show signs of talent within the on grade level classroom. The advisory council is designed to review the student data from an objective perspective in order to assist in student placement decisions.

After a successful first meeting in October, the Advisory Council will reconvene January 19th to review new student data. All documentation related to the Advisory Council process is due no later than January 11th if the student will be considered at the January 19th meeting. We encourage you to be in contact with your child’s classroom teacher about providing differentiated instructional opportunities prior to considering TAG services. If you have any questions about this process, please contact Michelle Jackson, TAG Coordinator and Assistant Principal.

Battle of the Books

The Battle of the Books has begun at Oak Grove School!

WHAT IS IT?

It’s a reading incentive program that encourages students to read and have fun while competing with peers. The Battle is run like a quiz or college bowl. There are 5 students in each team. All questions begin with “In which book...” or “In this book...” or “Name the book...” or something similar. The answers are the titles of the books; the questions have the details in them.

For example -

Q: In which book did a spider attempt to save a pigs life? A: Charlotte's Web.

BOOKS:

We will use 20 books from a combination of the 2016 Bluestem & Caudill lists.

WHO IS PARTICIPATING:

We decided to start small, so we rolled it out to 5th grade. We have 75 students participating on 15 teams. Wow!

WHEN:

The Battle will take place shortly after spring break. Today our 5th graders found out who their teammates are and each team was given the 20 books they must read before the competition.

Pictured are the students selecting which books they are each responsible for.

SEL News

We have had a wonderful first trimester! We began the year with our Skills for Learning Unit. We followed this with our Bullying Unit in October and are wrapping up our Empathy Unit this week! The focus this week has been to recognize feelings and show compassion towards others. We have been role-playing different scenarios and practicing showing compassion.

In addition, many of our 5th graders took the challenge to eat with someone new! They reported how it went and now the 4th graders are taking the challenge. Our goal is to teach children to be aware of the feelings of others around them and then take the next step. It can be easy to notice someone is sad or angry, but starting a conversation to show them compassion can be difficult. Increasing students’ ability to show compassion helps create a caring and positive school climate.

Give a compliment

Ask if you can help

Invite someone to join you

Welcome new friends

Look for people standing near that may want to join in but might not be confident enough to ask

Band News

Congratulations to the Beginning and Concert Bands on an awesome first performance Thursday night. We can expect great things from your groups in the future.

The Jazz Café concert will be this Thursday, Dec. 10th, at 6:30 in the Jr. High Cafeteria. All band parents and students are invited to come hear this fun concert.

5th grade students: You have really impressed us with your enthusiasm, so we will be handing out folders and five of the most exciting pieces of music arranged for young bands this concert cycle. Also, your second unit test will be the selection titled Marianne, #36 from the red book in cut time. I will hear students play that during lessons this week.

Thank you,

Mr. Jones

Oak Grove School Education Foundation

The Gala 2016 auction items keep rolling in…

Thank you one & all!

A special call out to Jerry Stuteville for donating the awesome Duncan Keith Blackhawk’s jersey!

And ditto to the the Muehlings for the Chicago Bulls tickets!

This is one Gala you won’t want to miss!

PTO News

December 7, 2015

A Message from PTO Co-Presidents Lisa Perrone and Mia Hughes:

Lunches this week:

Monday – Jersey Mike's

Tuesday – Panino/Potato

Wednesday – Pizza

Thursday – Panda

Pancake Breakfast/Mall in the Hall/Eagle Extravaganza

Thank you to all of our volunteers for your tireless efforts in putting on a successful Mall in the Hall, breakfast, and Eagle extravaganza! Fun was had by all. What a great way to kick-off the holiday season! Also, thank you to Mr. Farris and his great choir for coming out to entertain during the breakfast in the cafeteria. Great job to our chairs, Jennifer Pasternak (Pancake Breakfast), Maria Roberts (Eagle Extravaganza), Julie Block-Terson& Renee Muehling (Mall in the Hall). Much appreciation to our spiritwear chairs, Katrina Treutelaar & Juliana Furlong for coming out to sell the OGS car magnets and ornaments. Thank you so much for the following volunteers. We apologize if we missed anyone!

Student Council News

It is the season of giving, and that is what we would like to do! As a thank you to the fifth - eighth grade students who have supported us this year, we plan on serving you hot chocolate during your lunch periods on Friday, December 1. The hot chocolate and whipped cream is on us! We have enough to serve all students. If you would like to purchase marshmallows and a candy cane, they will be available for $1. But, the hot chocolate is free to every student. Thank you for your support!

Important Reminder

There will be no Early Hours in the Jr. High Library on Tuesday, Dec. 15th.